All Episodes
Previous Next
June 3, 2022 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
38:35
Episode 48 LIVE: Don't Take My Guns – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Thank you.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots.
You are in the right place.
This is the movement for you.
You ever watch this guy on television?
Like a machine, Matt Gaetz.
I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
The gun debate is once again back in the headlines.
It will be the focus of our show entirely today.
And of course, the left has wasted no time politicizing it.
I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz.
We are broadcasting live from 1721 of the Longworth House Office building here on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. And on guns, bad take after bad take is all the left has to offer.
Their solutions are incredible.
Ineffective, impractical, and largely unconstitutional.
Huge debate yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee on a variety of gun control measures that they are going to bring to the House floor next week.
And they're going to do everything they can to pressure Republican senators to join them to get a gun control bill to Joe Biden's desk.
We fought against all of it.
We exposed the arguments.
I'm going to give you the highlights from that hearing and also What you need to be most concerned about.
We all care about the problem of protecting children and we want to find solutions that do work without infringing upon Second Amendment rights.
That is the key to this exercise.
Now is not the time to throw away what I consider the most important insurance of our freedom.
The individual right to keep and bear arms.
We can approach this rare problem carefully, rationally, But that is not what we saw from House Democrats, and I think nothing brings that into greater focus than this tweet from Manu Raju.
He is covering the debate in the House Armed Services Committee, and he quotes David Cicilline saying, quote, Spare me the bullshit about constitutional rights, David Cicilline says to Matt Gaetz during hour nine of House Judiciary Committee meeting on guns package.
Spare me the bullshit about constitutional rights.
Can you believe that a member of the Judiciary Committee would be able to have such disdain for those rights?
We got a lot of folks right now joining us live on Rumble, on Facebook, on Getter.
Leave us your comments.
We'll be able to get to them.
Olaf Hart says on Getter, wrong headline for the show, quote, you won't take my guns, FJB. So until saner heads prevail, here's what you need to know.
First, people continue to draw attention to the Florida laws passed after the Parkland shooting.
Here is Senator Chris Murphy on this week on ABC News.
Take a listen.
The Florida law is a good law and it's a signal of what's possible, right?
It married together, changes to Florida's gun laws with some significant investments in mental health and school security.
And I had a long conversation with Senator Scott last week and had him tell me the story of how they were able to pass that legislation and get Republicans to support it.
It also proved that Republicans could take on the gun lobby because the NRA opposed that measure and still get Re-elected, which has been the case I've been making to Republicans for a decade.
So that kind of legislation certainly is a model.
Significant.
Not everything that anti-gun violence advocates would want.
And while I don't think we will mirror the Florida law, it certainly is the kind of thing that would make a big difference and would make a lot of families and kids in this country feel more secure and more safe if it passed at a national level.
We have to be very careful about this.
I'm from Florida, and I would not sign a federal version of the Florida laws.
The Florida laws have problems.
I would not have voted for the Florida law in its entirety if I were in the Florida legislature at the time it was considered.
For example, raising the age to purchase a rifle from 18 to 21 is is unconstitutional and ineffective.
If you can sign up for the selective service, if you can sign a draft card, you should be able to buy a rifle.
If you could potentially be drawn into a conflict for the preservation of your country or our nation's interests, you should be able to fully exercise the freedoms that you would be fighting for at home.
Yesterday on the House Judiciary Committee, my colleague Thomas Massey and Jerry Nadler had this very debate about raising the age.
Take a listen.
We recognize different ages for different purposes.
We recognize 18 for the draft.
We recognize 16 for driving in some states.
We recognize 21 for drinking.
So we recognize different ages for different purposes.
That's all I want to say.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Could I have a second to engage that?
Certainly.
I'll yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.
Would the chairman join me in co-sponsoring a bill to raise the draft age to 21?
No.
But the chairman feels that their brains aren't fully formed at 18, 19, and 20?
The research does indicate that in certain respects, but the Selective Service needs...
I mean, if the country needs people, it needs people.
It needs people whose brains aren't fully formed?
In certain respects, yes.
I yield back.
So there you have Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler saying, well, we have to bring people whose brains aren't fully formed into the military.
So, you know, that just is what it is.
I think Thomas Massey's right.
When you're a citizen of this country, you get to avail yourselves to all of those natural rights of citizenship.
And the Second Amendment is a natural right.
Even the Ninth Circuit, the liberal Ninth Circuit, agrees with that.
These increases artificially in age also won't stop school shootings.
Postponing a violent mental episode is not going to help.
Furthermore, if you're hell-bent on buying a gun to commit an atrocity, you can always buy one illegally, you know, like the criminals do, in the violent blue cities that have the most gun control.
Actually, on this salient point, The clearest take came from Shaquille O'Neal during some analysis of the Eastern Conference NBA Finals on TNT. Take a listen to Shaq.
You know, I want you to do a background check.
Let's not forget about the underground market.
Because again, places where, and even Charles, places where me and Kenny are from, anybody can get a weapon.
Am I right about that, Kenny?
Anybody can get a weapon anytime.
And I'm not talking to Ernie, go on the store, show your ID. You know, in the hood, anybody can get a weapon.
So I want to know what you think about raising the age to 21 about these background checks that, you know, I think would be largely ineffective.
Leave your comments on Twitter, Facebook.
We've got Tammy saying we need the USA to unify.
Unify.
All right.
And then Dina says no red flag laws.
And all right.
Well, thank you all so much for that feedback.
I also want to shout about red flag laws.
Red flag laws are absolutely the wrong move as well.
I emphatically oppose red flag laws.
And any Republican who supports them is a traitor to their constituents.
I made that point yesterday in committee debate.
Take a listen.
Let the message from this committee hearing to Republican senators be astonishingly clear.
If you back red flag laws at some reflexive response to some emotion that you have, you betray your voters, you are a traitor to the Constitution, the Second Amendment,
the Fifth Amendment, you do nothing to make mass shootings less likely, And you put a target on the back of your constituents to be Subject to bizarre proceedings that you wouldn't see in any other type of circumstance that has a profound impact on your rights.
And these will be abused.
They are being abused.
I think there's some that would probably red flag some of your colleagues in the Senate.
How long until the conversations about kicking Senator Hawley off of aircraft turn into conversations about taking his guns away?
See, this isn't just about guns.
It's about power.
And what the Democrats want is to ensure that the government has the power to take your guns away without giving you due process.
And shame on any Republican in the Senate that would pave the way to that type of deprivation of our liberty and our constitutional rights.
I yield back to the gentleman from Arizona.
We're back live.
Mike on Facebook says, we don't have a gun problem, we have an idiot problem.
And on Rumble, Rio says, enforce the laws we already have.
See, as congressmen, it's our duty to see that the Constitution is respected by the government at every single level.
And there should not be enforcement anywhere of something that is blatantly unconstitutional.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler gets totally flummoxed on the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment in this exchange with me all at once.
It's hilarious.
Take a listen.
This amendment is not ripe because it says that this Congress disfavors the enactment of red flag laws.
And yet, although this committee has reported out a red flag bill to the floor, the House has not yet voted on it.
And if it's not ripe, the House will probably vote on it next week, at which point this amendment would be ripe.
So I oppose this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, will the Chairman yield?
Will the Chairman yield?
I believe in the amendment it says in the states that the sense of Congress is that the Congress would disfavor the enactment of laws known as red flag laws in the states where they do currently exist.
Does that alter the chairman's view of ripeness?
You'll back to the chairman.
Well, I would oppose that.
That's up to the states.
It's not up to Congress to tell the states what to do in state law.
That's even worse.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I believe the chairman has a different view of that when it comes to voting rights and a number of other matters.
So I think when it comes to vindicating constitutional rights, we might have to say...
When you're claiming my time, protection of constitutional rights is a federal concern.
The Second Amendment is a constitutional right.
So is due process.
Yep.
They are.
That is what victory looks like in an exchange.
So he's fine with massive federal intervention to rewrite the voting laws of the states, but when it comes to vindicating natural constitutional rights, not so much.
Here's my perspective.
Red flag laws are far too easy for the government to use to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.
And not just the government.
Even private entities that are seeking some sort of grievance scenario, like a crazy ex, they file a report and then somehow get in concert with the government to seize your guns, going through a bad divorce.
This will surely be the part of dissolution of marriage litigation.
It's already happening in Florida where our red flag law has been used nearly 6,000 times.
This is my introduction of the legislation to stop red flag laws, not only federally, but in the states as well.
Take a listen.
I believe one of the greatest threats to the Second Amendment, to gun owners, to public safety right now, the negotiations going on in the United States Senate To potentially adopt red flag laws.
And I want members of the Judiciary Committee to be clearly on the record and to be clearly understood as to whether or not we believe it is a proper function of the United States government to try to coerce or entice or cajole states to adopt red flag laws.
I am unequivocally against red flag laws.
They deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights.
They deprive Americans of their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
Many states have laws beyond their red flag laws, where if someone is not In a position to appropriately own a firearm, that can be dealt with.
But as there is this seemingly reflexive desire to adopt red flag laws, including in my own beloved Florida, I would suggest that this committee take a position against them.
In the Sunshine State, nearly 6,000 people have been subject to orders as a result of red flag laws.
I do not view that as a success.
I view that as something that would cause grave, grave concern.
Increasingly, we see these red flag laws try to be used in contentious divorces, where you've got one person trying to deprive another person of their safety and security and their liberty and their Second Amendment rights in order to gain leverage in a marital dispute.
And I find that particularly challenging.
Our Second Amendment rights shouldn't be subjected to that type of Of deprivation, of review by a court in an adversarial proceeding.
You know, an adversarial proceeding that I think justice would require.
And I would yield to the gentleman for Kentucky.
We're back live here in the House office building.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Make sure you are subscribed with notifications turned on.
Red flag laws, they do not afford anyone due process.
And you can bet that they're going to be used against political opponents so that people can centralize power.
Last week, Democrats were virtually calling all Republicans terrorists.
So how long until their anti-gun tools are turned against those who speak ill of their masking policies, critical race theory, or other ideological mandates?
So background checks.
This is another issue constantly brought up by the anti-gun Democrats.
You already heard Shaq's take on that earlier.
It's important to also note, we already have required background checks when purchasing firearms from any licensed dealer.
And the truth is, most of these shooters from those horrendous mass school shootings that we all want to make less frequent, a lot of them would pass background checks anyway.
There's no history of mental illness or domestic violence or felonies in a lot of their pasts in terms of something that would be documentable and sufficient to be able to trigger one of these background checks.
If we go any further, we're not going to stop mass shooters.
We're just going to be infringing on the liberties of law-abiding citizens.
So now there are a few things we did get right with the law in Florida.
A program like the Sentinel program, very important, where retired military personnel can go to extra training to become certified as a force multiplier for school police, local sheriffs.
It would go a long way to protecting our schools and there's no reason why an NARA certified teacher with a valid carry permit shouldn't be allowed to carry on school property.
About two-thirds of Florida's counties Have opted into the Sentinel program.
And it's not just the red counties.
It includes Deep Blue Broward County because they know the harm of some of these gun-free zones on school grounds.
Gun-free zones don't work.
As the Buffalo shooter and others noted, certain places are soft targets due to the lack of firearms.
We don't want to create soft targets where our most vulnerable Americans go about their daily lives.
Recently, this clueless state senator from Uvalde named Roland Gutierrez tried to blame open carry, of all things, for the recent school tragedy.
Take a listen.
At the end of the day, what has happened over these years has been simply preposterous, culminating last session with their open carry bill.
Not one law enforcement agency, everybody in Texas, every law enforcement agency said, don't do this.
I gave a closing argument on that bill.
I said, because of this bill, kids are going to die.
I never thought that that bit of hyperbole Was going to happen in my community.
I never thought.
Open carry caused the school shooting in Evaldi?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The shooter wasn't open carrying.
He was in an active assault.
But one of the off-duty border patrol agents who helped had a firearm close and available because Texas is more permissive with gun laws than a place like New York.
He grabbed his barber's shotgun while he was getting a haircut and bravely charged into the school, clearing rooms and securing children.
In fact, good guys carrying can save the day.
It happens all the time.
Take a look at my colleague Thomas Massey dropping the facts on the good guys with guns.
There are dozens of instances.
Even though the media doesn't want to report them, sometimes they get reported.
Just this week, last week, May 25, 2022, Charleston, West Virginia, here a man with an extensive criminal history started firing an AR-15 style firearm into a crowd.
Fortunately, a woman who was legally carrying a gun was there to stop the attack.
She shot the attacker.
It ended before anybody got hurt.
South Fulton, Georgia, May 3, 2022, a teenager started firing his gun at multiple people.
There was a large number of people present, at the park because of an anti-violence riot.
South Fulton, Georgia.
This comes from a news report.
Meadows said The men involved in the shootout with Hambrick have been cooperative and will likely not be charged since the teenager fired the first shot.
After having reviewed most of the witnesses' statements, it appears that the descendant, Mr. Hambrick, discharged his weapon first, and as a result of that, there was an exchange of gunfire between him and two individuals, good guys with the gun.
Portland, Oregon, February 19, 2022. Okay.
Okay.
out a handgun and shooting multiple people in the crowd, leaving one woman dead and several others injured.
The shooting ended when a person with the group of demonstrators who is licensed to conceal carry a firearm fired back, striking the homeowner in the hip.
Again, a good guy with a gun stops the shooting.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, October 17th, 2021.
On Sunday, October 17th, four people were injured after a fight between two teenagers at Lancaster Park City Center Mall escalated into a shooting this past weekend.
A 16-year-old who was illegally carrying a gun started the shooting.
But it could have been much worse were it not for concealed handgun permit holder.
A bystander armed with a gun intervened in the shooting.
The unidentified bystander who legally possessed the firearm had heard gunshots related to the fight between two males that knew each other, police said.
The bystander remained on the scene until security and police arrived.
Syracuse, New York, August 31, 2021. The district attorney credited a property manager with saving the lives of several individuals after he pulled out a legally possessed 9mm handgun, the very gun that Joe Biden wants to ban, and fatally wounded a man who opened fire on a crowd outside a building.
San Antonio, Texas, August 11, 2021. A woman who crashed into a parked car in San Antonio's west side neighborhood climbed out of her vehicle and began shooting indiscriminately.
And people who came out of their homes and rushed to aid her.
The armed resident fired back and shot the driver to death, ending the violent threat to the neighborhood.
Annette was a good guy with a gun, or good gal with a gun sometimes.
Fort Myers, Florida, July 22, 2021. A man who was a convicted felon and illegally possessing a gun fired multiple shots into a crowd before a bystander returned fire.
When the bystander confronted the attacker, he stopped attacking and threw his gun in a parking lot.
Fortunately, no one was injured in the attack.
Chicago, Illinois, July 4th, 2021. It seems likely that if the concealed handgun permit holder hadn't intervened in this case, there would have been at least three deaths instead of just the one woman.
Arvada Colorado, June 21st, 2021. The attacker and two other people were killed in this attack.
A good Samaritan who was killed in a shooting in Alvarado, Colorado.
He did not hesitate.
He didn't stand there and think about it.
He totally heard the gunfire, went to the door, saw the shooter, and immediately ran in that direction.
I just want to make sure his family knows how heroic he was.
Toronto said he witnessed Hurley confront the gunman.
Mr. Hurley shot him.
I think I heard six shots from his gun, maybe five.
Police chief said Hurley is a true hero who likely disrupted what could have been a larger loss of life.
I'm running out of time, but Fort Smith, Arkansas, May 15, 2021. Zachary Arnold, 26, fatally shot.
Lois Hicks, 87, in her apartment.
Then began shooting at other people in neighborhood apartments.
Wallace A. West, 58, used a rifle, not a concealed handgun, to stop the attack.
Metairie, Louisiana, February 20, 2021, having murdered two people and wounded a couple of others.
It's clear that the attacker intended to kill as many people as possible.
The quick response by people with concealed handgun permits stopped the attack.
I could go on forever.
Anne-Marie on Facebook says Biden wants us unarmed and subject to the slaughter by criminals.
On Rumble, Rokor says they want to lower the age to 16 and then deem all federal gun laws illegal.
A different perspective from CKS on Twitter who says why can't people live without these guns?
Hot takes all around.
And of course, a good guy with a gun isn't going to stop a bad guy with a gun 100% of the time.
But it gives good people a chance.
And when seconds count and the police are minutes away, that could be the difference in life and death.
In the Evaldi case, the police, well, they waited in the hallway even after they arrived.
One thing we learned from the Parkland shooting is that police need to be trained and up to date on their training or else they will fail due to incompetence or problems in execution.
They also need leaders who will make the right decisions in real time.
I don't think that happened in Ivaldi.
We don't need to set our officers up for failure by putting up with a lack of funding, a lack of oversight, or poor leadership.
State governors should look to Ron DeSantis of Florida, who in the first days of his governorship fired Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for failing to keep his officers trained and prepared.
Bad decisions in real time.
The solution is not to federalize schools by getting the DOJ and the FBI involved.
I'm not for federalizing the school police any more than I'm for federalizing the regular police.
It's like school safety in Southern California, where they have open ramps and the use of outside space year-round probably is not going to be the same as in Minnesota, where I hear it's light outside like 20 minutes a day.
And of course, the left has its usual talking points like AR-15s have to go, white supremacy, replacement theory.
Representative Adam Kinzinger doesn't seem to know what he wants to do about AR-15s.
Maybe we should ban their sale, he opined on ABC Sunday.
The AR-15, which as you said, you own an AR-15.
Las Vegas, it was an AR-15.
The Pulse nightclub, Sandy Hook, Uvalde, so many of these are with that weapon.
What do you say to Chris Murphy who says that the AR-15 should be banned?
Straight up ban.
Why do you still have one?
I say that I'd love to get in a conversation with him about it in a good way, because I'll tell you where I've come on this.
I think we need to have this real discussion, and I don't mean that as politicians say so they can kick to the next question.
I think if there's a way to maybe, when it comes to ARs, You know, is there a special license you need to own one?
Are there ways that we can ensure that those that own them are the ones...
Look, again, we all have to admit, and no, 99.9% of AR owners aren't walking in and having mass shootings.
Is there a way to differentiate and make a distinction there?
I'm definitely ready to engage in that conversation, and maybe that ultimately includes not selling them anymore.
That's fine, because to me, again, I'm focused on saving life now.
Melody on Facebook, very upset that Open Carry would be blamed for the school shooting problem.
I appreciate that feedback.
And what Adam Kinzinger and others don't seem to understand...
Is that AR-15s are the most commonly owned rifle in America, used by many Americans for lawful activities such as shooting competition, hog hunting, and personal protection.
The left went nuts when I put up this tweet in response to someone asking whether or not people needed AR-15s.
And I highlighted the fact that target practice, self-defense, hog hunting, these things could be legitimate uses.
I think that got like 2 million impressions because of the number of people that were just utterly triggered.
Less people are killed by rifles every year than handguns or knives.
AR-15s are just a convenient boogeyman for the left.
Yes, we know AR-15s are scary and black and they make a loud noise, but AR-15s save people's lives.
Who's to tell the government, who is the government, I should say, to tell the roof Koreans that they don't need AR-15s to protect their businesses and families during the LA riots?
It was an iconic image.
Who is the government to tell you that you don't need an AR-15 to protect your family and property from violent hordes during civil unrest like those we saw in the last few summers?
But it makes people uncomfortable sometimes to know the real purpose of the Second Amendment.
And the Second Amendment does not exist for self-defense or for hunting.
It is The AR-15, well, who's to say that wouldn't be the tool that would be necessary to curate the balance of power that has secured American liberty for many generations?
We keep hearing That the Second Amendment is an absolute.
Biden says that you couldn't own cannons when the Second Amendment was written.
Wrong.
You actually could own cannons and shall not be infringed seems like a pretty absolute clause.
Our Founding Fathers not only wanted you to be armed, but sufficiently armed to deter tyranny.
We cannot let them down.
The left even tries to pin these crazed lunatic shooters on their right-wing fantasies.
The Buffalo shooter was admittedly a left-wing nut.
The person who shot up the congressional baseball game was a Bernie bro.
We had black nationalists go on rampages, Muslim fanatics, and yes, an occasional white supremacist.
It's all bad and should be condemned.
And now, we have Salvador Ramos, whose family doesn't speak English.
And he goes on a shooting spree, killing just people who were, in large part, Hispanics, first-generation immigrants just like himself.
Do you think he was motivated by mass migration and demographic change, as the left tries to call, replacement theory?
Cornell Belcher went on Meet the Press to blame guns, nationalism, and replacement theory all at once.
Take a listen.
We can't decouple sort of what's going on with guns from what we see, the nationalist movement in this country.
And Chuck, it is frightening to think that we are mixing easy gun access with the rise of nationalism and this toxic sort of hate, grievance politics, replacement politics, and we're mixing sort of easy access to assault weapons in this toxic mix And my God, this cannot be the way forward for this country.
And it's not a right or left problem, but you can't...
Look at that nationalist movement that you're seeing there, and we've got grievance politics, and we have replacement theory, and let's all grab assault weapons.
This cannot be the way forward for this country.
Sassy Bear on Rumble says that we might need our guns to be able to get to our food just given the challenge that we've had with supply chain issues.
Hopefully we're not to that point where Americans are essentially going to have to hunt for their food if they want to be able to survive and get along and get right with things.
Thanks so much everyone for Tuning in, you know, it's very important that we follow this legislative process, that we see what's coming down the pipe.
This is likely to be up for a vote next week on the floor.
Contact your members of Congress.
Contact your senators.
A lot of you seem to be against this gun control.
I'm against this gun control, and certainly we're going to continue to battle against it.
We also have breaking news right now that I want to go to.
Peter Navarro was just indicted by a federal grand jury on criminal contempt of Congress and this is a total abuse of our justice system.
The January 6th committee is illegitimate and thus no American should be held in contempt of Congress for not complying with a committee that is not duly formed and duly populated.
When we had Republicans that Leader McCarthy had selected to serve on the committee, Nancy Pelosi kicked them off.
And she did so because she wanted to run an illegitimate process.
And you know who was all too willing to run that illegitimate process with Nancy Pelosi?
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
So it isn't real.
It isn't proper.
These contempt proceedings are not justified.
And it continues to concern us that the goal right now It's not for them to be able to deliver for the American people, but for them to be able to just try to scare people about conservatives.
Maybe everyone's a domestic extremist.
Maybe everyone needs their gun taken away.
Maybe everyone's contemptuous.
It's quite something.
I think we've got a clip, guys, about just how the left sort of frames that up.
Let's go to it.
If you're looking at sort of the headwinds into the midterms, Democrats, listen, we're supposed to lose everything.
History says that.
We have an opportunity to change the dynamic.
Like George Bush changed the dynamic with national security.
You know what?
The economy was a big issue when George Bush was running his midterm also.
They never talked about it.
They talked about national security.
If Democrats are not talking about saving children's lives and stopping hate crime and a woman's right to choose what happens in her body this election cycle, well then shame on Democrats.
on Meet the Press saying, ignore people's economic concerns.
Ignore inflation.
Ignore supply chain issues.
Ignore gas prices.
Just run on these culture issues.
Just run on guns and abortion.
That the culture is swinging our way.
I think that people want to protect life, protect unborn life, and then certainly protect life in our schools, in our communities, not by passing gun control, but by ensuring that we get rid of the gun-free zones that make some of our most vulnerable soft targets.
Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for staying in the fight.
We'll be back soon on Firebrand.
Roll the credits.
▲
Export Selection